A NEW LOOK AT THE ANCIENT, ENDURING TURF WAR AMONG MUSLIMS, CHRISTIANS AND JEWS OVER JERUSALEM'S SACRED GEOGRAPHY

When I went to live in Jerusalem nearly a decade ago as a reporter, the very stones of the city seemed to whisper, Beware religion. Not even a strictly professional observer could miss the spiritual vibrations that emanated from those ancient walls and shrines, infecting every aspect of social and political life. In her immensely erudite chronicle Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (Knopf; 427 pages; $30), Karen Armstrong, British author of the best-selling A History of God, delineates how, quite literally, the stones of Jerusalem came to embody the deepest faith and identity of the three religions of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity,...